So I told my girlfriend that when I started dating her that I pretty much planned on marrying her. So she said “What? But you haven’t given me a promise ring!” So I yanked the ring off my finger and said “Here.” And she said “yay!” and put it on her finger.
So, would someone of a female bent please tell me what I just committed to? What is this… I one day promise to think about making plans to become engaged to marry you? I don’t get this. Why can’t we just live in sin and be done with it?
MadPoet, a promise ring is just that. A promise to love her. I gave Psycat a promise ring. People will criticize and say that it is sophomoric, but I think it is a gesture of love and I don’t give a damn. There is also the criticism of “Well if you love her and plan on marrying her, why don’t you give her an engagement ring?” This is crap too. It is just one of the steps towards marriage and happiness that you take with your heart. I f you love her, do it. Nothing wrong with the living in sin part though. 
What? And you didn’t first give her an “I’ll think about it ring?” How about an “I’ll-say-anything-to-get-laid” ring? After all, aren’t those the traditional preliminaries to a promise? Alas, yet another victim of the Evil Gnomes of Zurich© (EGZ©) bites the dust! The jewelry industry is controlled by the aforementioned gnomes, whose aim is to gain control of the entire world’s money supply.
One facet of their complex plan hinges upon selling needless jewelry to an unsuspecting public. Despite anything the history books say (they’ve all been altered to reflect the current state of affairs), no-one needed a ring for any purpose other than as a hedge against inflation. Then, in 1798, the Gnomes concocted the wedding ring. The wedding ring was a slow seller until EGZ© agents managed to convince Queen Victoria™ that “ladies don’t do that sort of thing”. That is, they don’t without a wedding ring!
This ploy was so successful that they decided to introduce a second ring – the engagement ring! By the turn of the century, no young lass would even consider marrying some young ruffian who didn’t present her with a ring that costs more than he makes in several months (what is it now? 60 months?) and beg her for her hand (and presumably the rest of her) in marriage. The promise ring, despite what the textbooks say, is not an ancient tradition handed down to Moses from on high along with the Ten Commandments, but is actually a recent invention introduced only last Thursday by means of microwave mind control waves beamed into your cranium from (so-called) communications satellites*.
My inside sources warn me that the next step in this insidious parade will be the introduction of the breakfast and lunch rings (the dinner ring having already been snuck onto our plates while we weren’t even looking!) The Gnomes are winning, folks! Reject these small but expensive tokens of much more valuable concepts before it’s too late!
~~Baloo
- I, myself, am immune to said thought-control methods. I easily confuse the EGZ© investigating agents. When I answer my phone or the doorbell, I ask “Fnord?”
The proper rout for engagement is now this:
- Earrings to show you are serious.
- Bracelet to show you promise to get her the pendent.
- Pendent to show you’ve worked past all her petty problems like you needing to show up on time.
- Friendship ring promises engagement ring.
- Engagement ring promises marriage.
Just look at it this way. If you buy a girl anything anymore, you can consider yourself engaged.
So that’s why I’ve never gotten a gift from a man.
At first I thought you intended to say “route”, but upon reflection, I think it’s more appropriate this way.
~~Baloo
::Running to post office to mail something, anything to Michi::
I think you need to pony up something a little more expensive than the Toy Surprise in a Crackerjack box, there, Chief!
And to think I married my man without even pair of earrings, much less an engagement ring…I must be stooopid…nah…Just in love and not overly crazy about jewelry…(Did get a pretty channel-set diamond wedding band, tho.)
As a female, as long as I get to keep anything you give me as a gift…sure, why not?
I gave back my engagement ring but I still have that promise ring. I’m thinking about putting it up on eBay.
I’d be happy with weeds picked from the side of the road if the gesture was sincere.
Warning:Pathetic sentimental story ahead.
When BunnyPapa and I were first seeing each other he took me to our local Great Texas Mosquito Festival™ to see the Grass Roots concert.
It was one of those portable stage set ups, and instead of seats they provided square hay bales for the audience to sit on.
About halfway through the concert, BunnyPapa takes my hand and puts this little ring on my pinky.He had made it from a piece of hay he’d sorta twisted/wrapped just so.It was just the sweetest thing!
I still have it and every once in a while I take it out and look at it.It says so much about him.Just a rough-hewn country boy, not much for flash and gilding.
But it means so much in it’s simple, quiet way.
My ex-husband gave me a promise ring after our first year of dating. It was an emerald with three little diamonds. At the time I thought it was pretty neat. He told me that the ring meant that we were “engaged to be engaged someday.” Well, 3 years later I was still wearing the ring and he had no intention of marrying me anytime soon. I was ready to dump his ass and then I found out I was pregnant and then we got married. (BIG MISTAKE! I know, I know. I learned it the hard way!) I know now that if he had really wanted to marry me he would have given me an engagement ring and not a promise ring. The promise ring just kind of strings the relationship along and there’s no real committment to it.
I would rather I didn’t receive any rings from a man unless it was an engagement ring. Bracelets, watches, necklaces, and earrings are fine as far as tokens of love but I think when you give a ring it should serve as a symbol of your promise to marry, not your promise to someday get engaged to get married. I also don’t think it should take 5 years to decide if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone. After 1 1/2 - 2 years of dating someone exclusively you should make the decision to either fish or cut bait.
As it were.
Anyway, I’ve given rings to (I think) all of my boyfriends, but we understood the gesture to be symbolic of the boyfriends-relationship and nothing else. You can get very pretty and inexpensive rings around here. I still have my third boyfriend’s (a.k.a. “the one I was really, really in love with”) ring, and I wear it frequently. It’s a silver Celtic knot and cost about $20.
Yup, it’s sort of a sign of commitment, one that you supposedly give when you’re not ready to get engaged to hope to when the time is more appropriate.
::suffering vivid memories of lying on my college bunk with my boyfriend, searching for the right words to break up with him, when he tries to give me his fraternity pin!!! Talk about timing… (and failure to pick up a vibe)…
“Engaged to be engaged” is one of the most irritating, childish, meaningless non-commitments I have ever heard of.
Either do it, or don’t you damned ninny! Do you want to be engaged to be married? Then do it. Otherwise, you know what? You are just dating. That’s it. You are not engaged to be anything.
Whenever I hear of anyone who is “engaged to be engaged,” I give them about a year before it’s all over. They obviously don’t like each other enough to decide to get married, right?
Is the best way to profess your almost-good-enough love for someone to give to them a little not-quite-the-real-thing ring, with all of its vague and nebulous shades of “hopefully someday (and I’m not saying this is gonna happen anytime soon, you understand) I will love you just a little bit more, which will push me over this ‘you know, I’m not quite sure about you’ hump I am struggling with, but I really do like you, I’m just not ready to elimate the possibility of someone better than you coming along” meaning?
I don’t know why this bugs me so much.
Just so nobody worries about the ring cartels making another quick kill, the ring in quesiton is a beat up ring with a stylized wolf’s head on it. I paid maybe $20 for it, and have been wearing it for several years now. Since neither of us wants to get married yet, I’m happy to get off so light.
I am happy with absolutely any reason at all to recieve jewelry. Call it whatever you want. A “I promise I’ll break up with you someday” ring. A “I promise you’ll get laid tonight” ring. Even “I hope I’ll recieve oral sex today” earrings. Really. Any reason at all.
“Promise Ring”; boy, Does that ever take me back to High School!
Hey, if it feels good, do it; There’s no harm done, except to lighten your wallet slightly.
::sending above said earrings to lola::
damn, I’m out of stamps…